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WINE UNDER $20; Sipping With Savvy

With the autumn and winter wine buying season here, savvy Westchester residents can drink and entertain rewardingly every day for $20 a bottle and under.

No cosmopolitan city, foreign or domestic, matches the cosmos of wines found in the New York metropolitan region. Though state law prevents New Yorkers from buying wine inexpensively in supermarkets, as Californians can, acute competition and widespread discounting can yield substantial savings.

Here are some basics of informed buying:

Find two nearby stores whose stocks suit your tastes and pocketbook, and develop personal relationships with the owner, a manager or a salesperson: they live on repeat business. Routinely check odd-lot bins for clearance bargains.

Take advantage of free tastings, usually on Fridays and Saturdays. Samples from three to five bottles reduce the risks in wine buying.

Clip, save and study ads; if you spot a boon -- something, say, from a Loire boutique -- buy one bottle that day, try it within 24 hours and reorder. The store, using direct importing, might have acquired a citywide exclusive of 10 cases of a jewel and might sell them all quickly.

Get on merchants' lists so that catalogs, fliers, newsletters and e-mail messages listing recommendations and early-bird specials help you beat the crowd. Watch stores' Web sites for similar information.

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If one store doesn't give a 10 to 15 percent discount and perhaps free delivery on a 12-bottle case, another will. Half-case discounts are common.

Check whether a red or white in a standard 750-milliliter bottle comes in a 1.5-liter version (a magnum), the equivalent of two bottles. It should cost less than two 750's; for large-scale entertaining, magnums save money. Dining alone at home? Check the half-bottles.

Keep receipts. If a tainted cork or mishandling has ruined a bottle bought for immediate drinking, return the wine recorked and intact within 24 hours. Reputable merchants offer reasonable customers another or substitute bottle, credit or their money back (ultimately, producers shoulder the loss); if you encounter opposition, be firm and go elsewhere next time.

Buy one comprehensive wine book. For novices and experts alike, nothing surpasses ''Hugh Johnson's Pocket Encyclopedia of Wine'' (to which I have contributed), revised and updated yearly. The 2000 edition will soon give way to the 2001 version. Its guidance amortizes its $14 cost virtually overnight.